


familial connections

by arabellagaleotti



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Childhood Memories, Death, Family, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Italian Maria Stark, Italian Tony Stark, Jewish Character, Jewish Howard Stark, Wakes & Funerals, because i wanna tag for it, but not if they're not, does italian/jewish count as poc?, i mean it does depend on if you're doing a historic thing or not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 18:55:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25870201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arabellagaleotti/pseuds/arabellagaleotti
Summary: “Do you have any other family, Stark?” Some reporter who’s jostled to the top of the crowd asks. God, they're calling him by his last name. He feels old, and he’s 21, for god’s sake.“Family?” Tony says, and his throat feels like he’s just swallowed glass.The reporter nods, microphone hoisted into the air. Tony is reminded of all the ears on him right now.---Bread baking. The radio, a woman humming along. The door, open, closing. A woman chattering. "Antonio!"Oh.
Relationships: Edwin Jarvis & Tony Stark, Howard Stark & Maria Stark & Tony Stark, Howard Stark & Tony Stark, Maria Stark & Tony Stark, Obadiah Stane & Tony Stark
Comments: 6
Kudos: 89





	familial connections

The lights from the paparazzi are flashing so bright they’ll blind him, and he’s glad for his sunglasses. They're part of his ‘look’ now, the press had told him. Classic, traditional black suit with a little bit of signature, charming eclecticism fits in with his brand. Everything about this is uncomfortable, his suit is irritating his skin and his lips are chapped. Plus, he’s at his parent's funeral. 

His drunk father had swerved into a tree, he’s told. He didn't see the accident site, Obie said it would be too traumatising, but he believes it. Howard liked to drink, and he didn’t like to be told what to do. His mother didn’t care enough to tell him. 

He feels strongly... numb about the whole thing. His parents are dead. He’s meant to care, isn't he? Instead, he just wants a hamburger. Maybe after this, they can dip through the drive-through on the way home. That’ll be a good headline, _STARK SON GETS CHEESEBURGER AFTER PARENTS’ FUNERAL._ Well, it’s hardly the worst thing the paps have caught him doing. 

But it just feels like another thing that happens sometimes, like taxes or rain or the tide coming in. 

Obie’s there, right next to him, and it's not as much of a comfort as he would have thought. But Obie’s practically his uncle, he’s always been there for him, even when Jarvis died. Why do his hands feel so funny? Numb. god, he should go for a run or something sometime, get his circulation going.

“Do you have any other family, stark?” Some reporter who’s jostled to the top of the crowd asks. God, they're calling him by his last name. He feels old, and he’s 21, for god’s sake. 

“Family?” Tony says, and his throat feels like he’s just swallowed glass. 

The reporter nods, microphone hoisted into the air. Tony is reminded of all the ears on him right now. 

  
Bread baking. The radio, a woman humming along. The door, open, closing. A woman chattering. "Antonio!"

Oh. 

_He’s in a living room, on a couch with a grandma-type floral print, kicking his legs that don't touch the ground. There's dust illuminated in the sunlight coming through the window. There's clutter and noise in the kitchen and the silhouette of someone passing the doorway. Down the hall, keys jangle, and the door opens. There's laughter, and his mother clacks by in her shoes. She looks…. Happy. Her entire face is light just light and laughter. Tony can’t ever remember his mother looking like that in his life, apart from this. She’s carrying bags of groceries, and another man follows her. She catches sight of him on the couch._

_“Antonio!” she steps forward, dropping the brown paper bags of groceries by the doorway, not caring at all. “Hello, my sweet boy,” she says and swings him into her arms. Distantly, he hears himself giggle in response and cling to her dress._

_“Come on, come on,” she says, all sing-songy, twirling around. “Let’s go see what nonna is making in the cucina, huh?” she smiles at him. “Kitchen? Do you know the word for kitchen?” She sways forward, past her groceries, past the man with the dark hair and the handsome face who is smiling, watching them without a word needing to be said._

_In the kitchen, a woman who is not nearly as old as grandmothers usually are is bent over the stove, dark hair bundled up at the nape of her neck. She turns at their entrance, smiling wide._

_Ah, maria, mi bambino, Come stai?”_ Ah Maria, my baby, how are you?

_“Bene, mamma, bene,” Maria replies warmly, pecking her mother on the check._ Good, mama, good.

_“C'erano ciliegie al supermercato,”_ were there cherries at the supermarket?

_“Si, molti,” she responds_. Yes, many cherries

_“It’s good you don't have to carry those cherries in,” the man says, reappearing with the brown paper bags, dumping them on the counter._

_Maria gasps dramatically, and jostles him in her arms, “Ah, bambino, say grazie to your cugino, huh?”_

_“Grazie,” Tony says sweetly, quietly, and that is maybe one of the last times he feels safe, inside his mother’s arms, in a warm Italian kitchen with the smell of baked bread._

The contrast is stark. Hah, pun. 

His father was always secretive. You can squirrel it away as working for the military and all that top-secret jazz but some of it, nights near Christmas where he lights candles in his office, how Tony had long hair until he was three, then his mother insisted on _finally_ getting it shorn. 13th birthday, how he’s suddenly vegetarian at events where they serve pork and shellfish.

He thinks of the people that turned up to the manor in Long Island when he was younger, just after they’d moved in and just after they'd been a big newspaper article about it.

_Tony was reaching his third birthday and Jarvis was walking with him to somewhere to do something he doesn't quite remember. They passed a window, and his father’s in the driveway, gesturing that way he does when he's anxious, talking to two people, a couple, older than him, in nice but used clothes._

_“Who's that, Jarv?” Tony asks, tugging o his sleeve._

_Jarvis looks through the window, and his face flashes through emotions that at that time Tony cannot even begin to understand. “Uh — I do not know, young sir. Let's go.”_

_“You do,” Tony insists._

_“Anthony?”_

_“You do know,” Tony said stubbornly, pouting._

_“Yes, sir. I do know, but I can't tell you who they are.”_

_“Why not?”_

_“I made a very solemn pinky promise, and you can't ever break pinky promises,” Jarvis tells him._

_Tony knows this to be true. “Right.”_

_Jarvis nods, satisfied he’s distracted the boy. “Right. Now, come on, Anthony. I’ll let you eat some of the cookie dough.”_

“No,” he clears his throat, and it doesn't help. “I don't have any family. It was just my parents.”

What a fucking lie that is, because somewhere in Italy an uncle is holding a grandmother sobbing in a worn-out kitchen, the bread burning, the radio crackling and nothing to hold onto. Somewhere in New York, where his father said he was from, a woman is looking at the newspaper with her son’s death splashed across it, no husband to hold her, and she’s just ashamed of herself for letting her son raise his son without her. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> thnk you for reading! leave a comment, please <3
> 
> xx


End file.
